If you listen closely, you can already hear the Mid-City cheers from fans of high indulgence/low guilt. Halo Top, the low-calorie, high-protein, low-sugar ice cream juggernaut, is expanding with yet another brick-and-mortar scoop shop—its third L.A. location within a year—and this time, it’s headed straight for the Grove.
Next Friday, Halo Top’s hub within one of the city’s largest shopping malls will throw open its walk-up windows to serve cones and cups of hard-packed ice cream and swirls of soft serve, with more than 40 toppings available—many of the toppings unique to this location. The Grove’s particular scoop shop will specialize in whimsical and unconventional accoutrements, such as potato chips, bacon bits, caramel corn and doughnut holes, plus gourmet toppings including locally-baked cookies and chocolate-covered strawberries.
Rendering: Courtesy Halo Top
Not one to shirk a celebration, the brand’s new scoop shops are already gaining a reputation for giveaways, handing out product it when it rains or when a new store opens. As such, the Grove’s newest addition will hand out free ice cream or soft serve to its first 100 customers on Friday, August 24, making for a sweet snack as you do some weekend shopping.
And unlike Halo Top’s launches in Westfield Topanga and Westfield Century City, this opening also includes an “interactive 3-D playground,” which means, essentially, that the ice cream company is wise enough to set Instagram traps. In Museum of Ice Cream fashion, look for large, interactive ice cream-inspired installations—here in ode to three of Halo Top’s most popular flavors. There’s a giant pint of birthday cake that is, in fact, a cake-inspired ball pit full of confetti balls; a rainbow swirl pint, featuring rainbows, clouds and “a Boomerang-worthy” gold swing; and a strawberry pint involving red-and-white polka dots, plus a strawberry hot air balloon for “the ultimate Instagram moment.” Those looking to snap a saccharine pic should move fast; the installations will only be around during opening weekend.
“Halo Top was born and raised in Los Angeles,” founder and CEO Justin Woolverton says in a statement. “We’re honored to be a part of an iconic L.A. institution like the Grove.”
Halo Top opens within the Grove at 189 The Grove Dr on Friday, August 24, with hours of 10am to 9pm Sunday to Thursday, and 10am to 10pm Friday and Saturday.